


The Secret Door

by Jynto



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage, Metaphysics, Post-Canon, Worldbuilding, also has a car chase with a Spectre, canon divergence - after The Amber Spyglass, not canon compliant with Book of Dust but may reference a character or two
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-01-06 01:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21218471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jynto/pseuds/Jynto
Summary: “It’s alright, we don't fear the Spectres here.”Twenty years ago, the knife was destroyed, Dust was restored, and Will grew up without Lyra. But now an old enemy is returning, threatening to undo every sacrifice they made to keep the worlds safe, and Will has no choice but to fight it, as the windows between their worlds are ripped open once more.But who are the mysterious organisation calling themselves the United Worlds? And what role do they play in the plans of the rebel angels? The answer lies with a woman who has devoted her life to studying the alethiometer. That is, of course, if Lyra can prevent the destruction of her own world first.





	1. Fingerprints

**Author's Note:**

> Well, it's been a long time coming. Almost anything I could say about it now would feel inadequate. I mean it’s not quite Book of Dust lengths of time that it’s taken me to write this, but most of the core ideas in this story came about during the summer of 2013. And with the second Book of Dust coming out earlier this month (the one that will inevitably contradict this, and which also happens to have an annoyingly similar title), I decided just to go ahead and release the first chapter of what is sure to be a novel-length fanfic, otherwise I'll never get round to it.
> 
> Even though most of it has yet to be written, and that quite honestly terrifies me.
> 
> And now, dear readers, the front cover:

For Lyra, it was always a special treat when the Relfs came round to dinner. They were more to her than just the family of her old alethiometry tutor. Ever since a series of ordeals in her adolescence, they had been the closest thing she had to a family of her own.

Today’s visit was a particularly fine occasion, being as it was the first time they’d seen her since the grad ceremony. Five long years of hard work and study meant Lyra had earned the right to call herself a _Master of Alethiometry, First Class Honours_.

She greeted Hannah and Victor that day with kisses to the cheeks; their dæmons said hello in their usual ways; and Lyra gave Peter a great big hug, ruffled his hair and remarked on how much he’d grown. Peter shrugged it off with a smile before asking to go upstairs to study, much to Lyra’s relief. It gave them time for a conversation with just the adults, and she was burning to discuss her future plans with Hannah. But if there was one thing Lyra’s ageing mentor still did to annoy her, it was the way she insisted on approaching her for parenting advice.

As usual, the concern was about her son’s health.

“And for sure, he _is_ growing,” said Hannah. “But, he’s nowhere near as tall as his peers. Why, my father-in-law was convinced he was only _seven;_ his dæmon barely speaks and no doctor’s been able to give us a straight answer.”

Lyra thought that she might know about this, but didn’t want to say so, for fear of it being true.

“They ask if I’m feeding him correctly,” Hannah continued, “which I do, by the way. They ask if he gets his ten hours’ sleep, which he does. Nothing less and nothing more. What am I doing wrong?”

“Blaming yourself, for one thing,” said her marmoset dæmon, Jesper.

“Have you asked the alethiometer?” Lyra asked, absentmindedly carving up the roast swine.

“That was one of the first things I tried,” said Hannah, prompting Lyra to raise an eyebrow. “But I couldn’t make sense of what it said.”

She almost didn’t realise she’d been holding her breath for that answer. But even if it was true, there was nothing that could be done about it. And even then, she had considered asking for herself at one point; but Lyra had decided there were some truths she’d rather not know, and this was one of them. She’d learned that the hard way in her undergrad years.

Still, there was a chance Hannah might find out anyway. But without Lyra’s knowledge of other worlds, she doubted her old mentor would get that far.

“I mean, if _you_ can’t understand the reading...” she began.

“Oh, don’t be so modest, Lyra. Your skills at this point are superior to mine.”

At that, Lyra made an indignant scoffing sound.

“No way,” she said, almost pulling a face at the suggestion. “You still have so much to teach me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Hannah. “You know I’ve been doing more office work at this stage in my career and less and less research. Without the polish of education, my ability with the symbol reader has all but rusted away. And you’ve come so far in your master’s degree, Lyra. Most of which without my help, might I add? I may be able to guide you a bit further, but if you really wanted to continue your studies, I suggest you look for funding as a researcher. There’s not much more a tutor can teach you.”

“But I...” Lyra said with a start. “I don’t know _anything!”_

“Hah! Spoken like a true scholar,” said Victor, looking up from his newspaper. “And yes, Lyra, though I commend you on your thirst for knowledge, you might wish to play to your other strengths if you’re looking for a stable career.”

Hannah nodded before adding, “If indeed you _want_ for a stable career.”

Lyra chewed her tongue, noticing that Pantalaimon was subtly mirroring her body language, something her old mentor was all too good at picking up on. She and Pan had grown so much in the time since they’d met her. Yet in her face Hannah still saw the wild young girl who’d returned from the North a decade ago in a desperate need of help.

“It’s just that I used to know so much_ back then_, about the symbols and, and... I dunno. When I was a kid it all just _made sense_ to me.”

“You’re thinking that if you take a break now, you’ll never be able to pick it up again?” said Hannah.

“Well, no,” said Pantalaimon. “She thinks that with enough practice and diligence, we’d be able to get as good with the symbol-reader as we _used to be_.”

“Ugh, can you blame me?”

The dæmon sighed. He too remembered those last few months before he settled as a pine marten. They were perhaps the greatest time in their life. But, as he had to remind his human every once in a while, they needed to be looking forward, not back.

After all, there had been many great hardships alongside the adventures, and on more than one occasion they had nearly died. One might even call it a miracle they made it back alive, if not for the fact that they didn’t believe in miracles.

And in no small part thanks to what they’d done, the rest of the world was now quitting its childish belief in a higher power. The Holy Church no longer held its Authority over the land, and people were beginning to think for themselves again. More and more of them were realising if they wanted a better world, they had to build it for themselves.

To this end, Lyra had founded a student society with this as their mission, which she’d officially named in her second year: the Republic of Heaven. To her immense delight, other students were joining the cause. And it seemed it would continue to thrive long after her graduation.

Aside from her earlier role in bringing about an end to death, The RoH was one of the things Lyra felt the most proud of. But in spite of everything she’d achieved in her academic and social lives, it was all too easy to overlook those things in comparison them to the greater deeds she’d done as a child.

“Lyra, you’re still so young,” said Hannah. “You could spend maybe a year or two studying another discipline and it wouldn’t make a grand bit of difference to your ability to read symbols. But you’d have time to figure out if that’s what you really want to do. And if, after all that, you find your thirst for knowledge isn’t sated then, well, I dare say alethiometry is a worthy field for you. And Heaven knows, we need more truth-tellers in this world today.”

Lyra had yet to ask her about this, but it seemed her mentor had pre-empted the question. She knew Lyra that well.

“Thank you,” she said, and lingered on that before turning the conversation over to more trivial matters. “And on that note, Victor, what’s the paper say?”

“Oh, nothing much,” he said. “Father Mc-Whatsisname is giving his usual drivel about how _‘rampant secularism’_ is going to bring about the _‘end of morals as we know them’_. Wants it to be a dire warning for the rest of us.”

“Good,” said Hannah. “There are some morals that need to be ended.”

“Macphail? I thought he was dead,” remarked Lyra

“A different one,” said Victor. “Not that it matters anyway. They all spout the same old drivel.”

“Oh, that one. Didn’t he just become head of the Consistorial Court of Discipline?”

“Yes, but the Consistorial Court’s on its way out now,” said Victor. “They’re on borrowed time and they know it. I suspect it won’t be long before our _friends_ in Geneva shut down that division entirely.”

“What a shame,” came Hannah’s sarcastic quip. “I rather hoped it’d stay around long enough to drag the rest of the Magisterium down with it.”

“Oh, mark my words,” said Victor. “We’ll see the collapse of that wretched institution in our lifetimes.”

Lyra stayed quiet, not because she didn’t have volumes to speak about the fall of the Magisterium, but because she felt like she’d said it already, which she had. And Pantalaimon was right. It was all too easy to dwell on the high points of their past and forget the future.

At dinner they drank a toast to Lyra’s future. Peter, who was too young for hard drinks, joined in with his sambucus flower cordial. Twenty minutes later he got up to leave. Lyra tried to offer him seconds of the roast swine; but he declined, claiming he wasn’t hungry for more, despite his mother’s insistence that he have some.

As soon as Hannah excused him from the table, Peter shuffled back upstairs with his study book. The adults didn’t know what to make of it, but were glad that, despite his chronic unwellness, he was at very least motivated to learn. With their own bellies full however, they found themselves retiring to the living room to drain the last of Lyra’s port, their dæmons curled up and resting by the fireplace.

By now the conversation had shifted from inebriated anecdotes of undergrad life to the uncomfortable topic of Lyra’s childhood.

“D’you know what it was that you called me, the first time we met?”

“Oh, not this again,” said Lyra. “And I didn’t say it to your face, Hannah! I was with Mu... Mrs Coulter.”

She hesitated with the name. For what it was worth, the final fate of her parents just so happened to be one of those things she wished she’d never asked the alethiometer.

“I know, I know,” said Hannah, “but I overheard. _Elderly_ is the word you used.”

Victor’s fox dæmon pricked up her ears.

“Yes I know. But I must say, in my own defence,” begged Lyra. “I used to think anyone was elderly if they had grey hair.”

“I was forty-six!”

Lyra and Hannah burst out laughing. Victor, who sitting on the longchair opposite them, wasn’t sure if it would be more tactful to laugh, or not to laugh. So he compromised with a weak chuckle.

After that, he felt duty-bound to break the silence.

“I wonder,” he whispered, with a glance in the direction of the stairs, “if he really is studying, or just _pretending_ to study.”

“We could find out,” murmured Jesper without opening his beady little eyes.

“Does he do that often?” asked Lyra.

“Well, let me put it this way,” said Victor. “He only ever works this hard when he’s visiting this house.”

“Maybe I’m just _that much_ of a good influence!” said Lyra, who was on her second glass by now.

Hannah sat up and mumbled, “Goodness Victor, is now really the time to fuss about his education?” before adding to Lyra, “Don’t worry dear, I’m sure he’s no worse than you were at his age.”

Lyra tensed a little in her seat. What exactly did she mean by that?

Seconds later, Hannah’s expression changed as if something occurred to her as if in slow motion.

“Goodness, if _you_ thought I was elderly eleven years ago, Peter must think I’m _ancient!”_

“Our boy thinks nothing of the sort,” said Victor, reaching out to pour himself a third glass.

“You know what?” said Hannah. “I should go upstairs and speak to him, make sure he’s not lying.”

“I’ll go,” said Lyra, seeing the marmoset and the fox curled up so comfortably by the fire. It would be a shame to make them move. “No really, I’ve had the least to drink.”

It wasn’t just that though. She had also remembered something extremely important. There were two rooms upstairs in her house, one of which was the bedroom. The one that had foolishly been left unlocked, by her.

Lyra bounded up the stairs, checking the spare room first, and immediately saw that Peter was not in it. Furthermore, his study book lay unopened on the toy chest. Pantalaimon jumped up to take too a closer look, but it was already obvious.

“Well, he isn’t studying,” he whispered to Lyra.

She had rather suspected him of playing with something from the toy chest, but it didn’t look like that had been opened either. This was getting more and more suspicious by the second. So, with as little noise as possible, she stalked up the hallway in three stealthy paces and twisted the bedroom doorknob.

What she saw in there was Peter on her bed, sitting still in a way that looked even more suspicious than before. He must have stopped whatever he was doing as soon as he heard her on the stairs.

“Peter Aprilia Relf, what in the world were you _doing?”_

“We was... jumping on the bed,” said the boy.

Lyra gave a snort of derision.

“So tell me then,” she said, pacing the length of the room. “Why didn’t I hear you jumping?”

Aprilia changed shape into that a timid little mouse. Despite this, the boy kept trying to lie.

“We was jumping quietly, weren’t we April?” he said, nodding at the dæmon.

“You’re a bad liar, Peter Relf,” Lyra teased.

“No, I en’t!”

“_Am not_,” Lyra corrected. “Besides, if you’re telling the truth, why do you look at her every time you say something?”

“Because everyone knows,” Pantalaimon continued, “that looking at your dæmon is the most obvious way to reveal the fact that you’re lying.”

Peter glanced back at his dæmon, then realised he was doing it, and stopped.

“Fine,” he said. “I been bad. I’m not a good liar.”

Lyra scoffed with disapproval.

“That much is obvious,” she said. “You shouldn’t even be in my bedroom, let alone—”

“But it takes one to know one,” Peter mumbled.

“Um, _excuse me?”_

Peter looked the way a child so often looks when he knows he is in trouble, but refuses to let such things stop him.

“Yeah, well, you know I’m a bad liar because... you’re an even _worse_ bad liar!”

“Is that so?” said Lyra, snorting like a cliff-ghast.

“Yes,” said Peter, answering the rhetorical question.

“Oh, _really_ then? I’ll have you know,” said Lyra, swelling with pride, “when I was your age, I was a very, _very_ good liar. One of the best. I told lies to every kid in Oxford, and they _all_ believed me.”

Peter’s eyes lit up at the absurd-to-him notion that this grown-up with a master’s degree had once been a mischievous little girl.

“Did you lie to the grown-ups?”

_“Especially_ the grown-ups.”

“You mean like, when they was grown-up and you were a kid?”

Lyra nodded.

“Oh!” said Peter. “But did you have to stop lying when you became an... alithiometist?”

_“Alethiometrist_,” Lyra corrected. “And yes, I suppose I grew out ofthat because there was a time that I had to tell the truth more often. But I’m still partial to the odd fib every once in a while.”

“Really?!”

_“Shhh!_ Not so loud,” Pantalaimon said from the bed.

Peter went on. “But I thought the alethee... I thought the compass only tells the truth.”

“It does,” she said curtly. “But you know what they say about alethiometrists; _the biggest, fattest liars in all the lands have truth-telling devices in their_..._”_

She trailed off before she could finish the rhyme.

Her gaze was following Pantalaimon’s. They were both now looking at the cabinet where they kept the alethiometer. One of its handles was slightly askew.

Lyra cursed herself for not realising the boy was tall enough to reach it. He may be short for his age, but he wasn’t_ that_ short.

But it still shouldn’t have been possible for him to get it open. She’d always locked it after using it and kept the key to the cabinet in a safe place where he certainly wouldn’t find it. _How in the worlds_ did he get anywhere near the top of the wardrobe?

Oh, but of course! April had flown up there in bird form. How very clever of them.

Peter and his dæmon exchanged nervous glances as Lyra opened the cabinet and took out the small golden instrument that resembled a compass. She held it up to the light and examined its edges until she saw what she wanted to see.

“Fingerprints,” she said with a scowl. “Peter Relf, _what were you doing_ with my symbol reader?”

“I only asked it a few questions!”

“Peter. This is no time for jokes or lies. This alethiometer is one of only six like it in the world. It is _priceless. And what if you had broken it!?”_

There was a pause.

“Sorry, Mum,” he said in a small voice.

“And you bloody well should be! Do you have any idea—” Lyra began, but stopped when she realised what she was replying to. _“What_ did you just call me?”

“You’re my real mum, en’t you?”

_“Who told you that?”_ asked Lyra, now in a tone of genuine anger.

“The compass did.”

Lyra flared her nostrils. She was about to give Peter a very stern talking-to about why little boys should never lie to grown-ups, when Pantalaimon well and truly put his paw in it.

“He’s telling the truth, I think. He didn’t look at April when he said that.”

“Yes, I _know_ he’s telling the truth!” Lyra snapped right back at him, before realising what she’d said and clasping a hand over her mouth.


	2. Precipitous Embrace

“LYRA! LYRA!”

The boy called from the other side of an abyss, but it was useless. Every one of his shouts came out no louder than a whisper.

The stony ground was shifting below his feet, bringing him closer to the edge of the endless void, but closer to the one who loved him most. With great difficulty, he steadied his feet, taking a series of deep breaths, before screaming as loud as his little voice would let him.

“LYRAAAA—!”

The sound choked off as he ran out of breath. There was no echo. Any noise that might escape his mouth was stopped dead by the heavy air. He could reach no further with his voice than he could with his hands. And even though the boy’s eyes were full of light, he couldn’t see a thing. The light from the Dust was so bright, his eyelids were almost powerless to stop it.

It was flowing all around him now. A _literal _stream of consciousness, coaxing him along like a boulder on a riverbed, that caused him to stumble and take another lunge towards nothingness. The Dust was rendering him both deaf and blind. But he still had hands, didn’t he? And with his eight remaining fingers, he scanned his surroundings.

If there was anything here, it was out of his reach. Maybe if he leaned further forward, he’d be able to reach a bit further. But if he did that he risked overbalancing and losing everything.

There might have been a time in his life when all choices existed at once. Those options now had been whittled down to almost nothing. But to keep all them open would have meant doing nothing at all. And he had to choose something, even if it meant making the wrong choice.

In the end it was not him but the sheer pressure of Dust on his back that decided for him. Any influence he had over its direction was meaningless. No matter which direction he flung his body, the flow of the Dust would carry him. Every other option was snuffed out like a candle as Will practically fell forward, trying hard to convince himself he’d _chosen_ this.

There was nothing he could do to regain his balance. His momentum carried him over the lip of the ravine and beyond the point of no return. But he wasn’t ready to give up yet. He swayed his arms helplessly, scanning the space for anything at all to grab onto, to find the stability he’d needed in life.

His right hand clasped a warm piece of fabric. At the same time, the arm that was wearing it grabbed Will’s left shoulder. Both bodies held each other tightly. He wrapped his entire right arm around hers, not wanting to ever let go. She was holding him with both arms now. He ran a hand through her soft hair while she explored his left arm with her other hand, all the way to the point where the two fingers were missing, just to make sure it was really him.

The boy and the girl held tight in their precipitous embrace, leaning on each other as would two sides of the same roof. If either one let go, they would both fall forever. And they were so close now, Will only needed to whisper it.

“Lyra.”

She replied, “Didyoubuildit?”

“What?”

“TheRepublicofHeaven.”

“Slow down. I can’t hear.”

Lyra tried to speak at a normal speed, but it was a struggle, having to take short sharp breaths at the ends of her words.

“Did, you, build, theRepublic, ofHeaven?”

Will said nothing, which felt too much like an admission of failure, though nothing else could be said in that moment that felt right. In fact his feelings about this place were the exact opposite of rightness. Their dæmons weren’t there for one thing. Why? Had Pan and Kirjava ran away to give Will and Lyra some alone time?

No, that was ten years ago. Maybe more. How else was he able to recall memories from his 23rd birthday? No, it had to be something else. Where and _when_ were they now?

He had a nasty feeling he was going to open his eyes to find himself in the world of the dead, but that wasn’t possible. Why didn’t they have more time? It couldn’t have been much longer than ten years, and all too soon they were going to walk through that window and fizzle out into particles in another world’s sky? _Ten fucking years!_ Why had they gone and died right now? And if, supposing he’d chose to stay in her world instead of a long life, had it had been worth it?

No, it couldn’t be, otherwise they wouldn’t have both died at the same time. Had they not already promised to live long lives and build the Republic of Heaven in their own worlds? Well, he’d already failed in one of those promises, hadn’t he? Could that be why she was so keen to know about it?

Lyra she had gone very quiet now. Could it be she was annoyed about the Republic? Now that they were dead, did it even matter? Questions bounced back and forth in his mind until there was room for no other thoughts. And Will decided that he might just find the answers if he opened his eyes, even if it meant waking from the dream and leaving Lyra.

Neither of them alone would have done it, but he knew she would only open them if he did. It would be on the count of five. And so he waited five seconds, or it might have been five minutes, before pulling open his sticky eyelids and saw, for the sweetest split second, the ageless face of Lyra Silvertongue bathed in golden light.

The after-image seemed to linger in his eyes forever until the walls and ceiling of his bedroom came into focus.

Will’s sleepy mind drifted to a dark shape in his peripheral vision. It was Kirjava. The black cat dæmon was already awake and leaning over the bed.

“You had that dream again?” she said.

What dream could that be? Will’s memory of it was fading fast, except for one key detail.

“I saw her,” he said groggily. “Kir, I _saw her_.”

It had indeed been _that_ dream.

The precise context in which it happened was all but forgotten. But the only part he needed to remember was that he’d seen her face and it had been lovely.

“Twenty years actually,” said Kir.

“Hm?”

“Thought I heard you _think-say_ something about ‘ten years’?”

Will tried to recall the situation around those words. He couldn’t remember if he’d said them in the dream or merely _thought them very hard_. But either way, he and his dæmon both knew their significance. It was the number of years that had passed since he and Lyra went their separate ways.

Except that it wasn’t. Like Kirjava had said, it was now more than twenty. Time had gotten away from them.

“Oh,” said Will. “Must have forgotten what... Wait, did I really say...?”

“I don’t know,” said Kirjava. “I’m never in that dream.”

Will leaned back on his pillow and with a brilliant flash of clarity began to recall something else from the dream. But it just as quickly slipped from his mind, and when he tried again to recall that memory it was replaced by the memory of _himself trying to remember it_.

Will gave up and heaved himself out of bed. He stripped off his pyjamas and put on a clean pair of pants, then his work clothes – a casual shirt and some dark trousers. The shirt still had a faint tea stain on the back, but no one would see it if he wore a lab coat.

For breakfast he reheated some leftover curry and had it on toast. He also filled up a water bowl for Kirjava and left it next to a bowl of weeks-old dry cat food. Kirjava couldn’t stand the stuff, but it wouldn’t do well for appearances if he was seen to be starving a cat.

No one, besides a few close friends, was allowed to know that she could talk. Having to hide his dæmon away like this was an unfortunate necessity of living in this world. It helped that she’d settled in the form of a common household pet and not something harder to hide, like a bear, or a penguin. The fact they also could travel very far from each other with only mild discomfort was even more helpful, not least because it made paperwork so easy.

Kirjava would stay at home during most workdays. Once they got further than a few miles apart, they no longer felt each other’s presence in their thoughts, therefore making it possible to work on two tasks independently, something the witches in Lyra’s world had no doubt discovered for themselves.

Their ability to separate, while a rare gift among those with external dæmons, came at a cost. It got awfully lonely without her nearby. Neither Will nor Kirjava felt truly complete without the other one’s presence. Kirjava needed Will to give her a sense of purpose, while Will needed Kirjava to be his courage, without whom he felt perpetually anxious.

He had also been thinking about death a lot lately. Perhaps that just came with the territory of getting older. After all, he was ‘closer to forty than twenty’ in his own words. But there was something else about it that bothered him, because for one reason or another, Will found it increasingly difficult to face death the way he’d done as a boy.

To experience a ‘pure death’, as Kirjava called it, almost frightened him as much as being trapped in the world of the dead forever. These fears never troubled him for long, but they came back to haunt him at the worst of times. Even now, as he joined the surge of traffic on the eastbound A4, he was all too aware that a passing car might swerve and kill him any second.

He was a few minutes late that day, having driven cautiously through Summertown instead of the cross-country route. Will’s work that morning was uneventful as usual. He was called in at one point to clean a solvent spill on the first floor, filled in some risk assessment forms, carted another batch of used Petri dishes to the incinerator, then some expenses forms, then more Petri dishes, and that took him right up to the first coffee break.

He was on his way to the coffee machine, trying not to look at the clock when he bumped into his line manager in the hallway. She promptly greeted him with:

“Ah Will, do you have a moment?”

This took him aback, but he supposed he really ought to go with her.

“Yes, Doctor Mills?”

“Please, call me Trudy.”

Will followed Dr Mills to her office and sat down in front of her desk. There were no chairs available apart from a lab stool, so Will took that one, looking awkwardly tall for a moment. Then he changed his mind and stood up.

“Yes, it seems someone from Accounting has stolen all my chairs. Not going to name names, but...” she cleared her throat. “As you know, we have been looking for someone with medical expertise to fill our liaison position.”

Will did _not_ in fact know this, but he nodded anyway. Dr Mills continued. “You trained in medicine and neurology. Is that right?”

“Yes. I mean... Well, I didn’t technically finish medical school.”

“We can work with that,” she said. “I think, Will, that you undervalue your skillset somewhat. In fact you’ll probably be a good pick either way for out hospital liaison. Because, as you know, we’ve been looking to fill this role for almost six months and I _really do_ encourage you to apply for it. You wouldn’t have to have the _exact_ qualification, just experience.”

Will had not been expecting to hear that part.

“There would also be a significant pay-rise,” she added.

“I’m still not sure,” Will said slowly.

“Will, I’m kind of asking you this because... it sounds like you’re not _entirely_ happy with technician work.”

“No, I am,” he said, more quickly this time.

“You’re happy with it, or you are sure about it?”

“The first one.”

“That’s okay. I’m just trying to offer you another choice. Maybe something that suits you a bit better. I mean, there must have been some reason you went into medicine?”

At this rate, he was not going to have time for a coffee break.

“I suppose...” he began. “But then again, it was such a long time ago. If anything, I’d say I chose it out of a sort of... youthful enthusiasm to improve the world. Y’know, become a doctor, save lives?”

“I know what you mean,” she said. “And while you won’t be doing_ exactly_ that as a hospital liaison, I do think it’d be an excellent opportunity for you. You’ll get more chances to network, maybe even represent us at trade shows if the position becomes permanent.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Trudy nodded.

Will was told he was under no obligation to take the job right away. And, as she reassured him, he’d be making no further commitment if he simply attended this week’s management meeting, which just so happened to start in under fifteen minutes.

And so that was where they went. He and Trudy were the first to arrive in the sparsely decorated meeting room. For the next ten minutes they talked very little, despite Trudy doing her level best to make him comfortable. If only she could have taken the hint, she might have known he preferred silence.

Kirjava would have told him to take it. But however appealing this job offer sounded to Will, he felt uneasy considering a promotion at a time when he was actively trying to leave the pharmaceutical industry. He’d gone into it wanting to be a doctor and ended up as a lab technician. In his heart, he wanted to be the doctor who discovered the cure for dementia, and working in the pharmaceutical industry had been little more than a fallback. It seemed, for one reason or another, the Republic of Heaven never happened as he planned.

Still, he tried his best to stay awake and alert in the meeting, glancing back and forth from the presentation board to whoever happened to be talking at that moment.

It would have been such a good idea to bring a watch today, Will cursed himself for not thinking of it. The only wall clock in the room was behind him and therefore useless. And even though he could be quite discreet about checking the time, this ability had its limits. Several times he tried looking at Trudy’s smartwatch, but its dead blank face rarely ever showed the time. And as the meeting scraped into what felt like its third hour, his eyes drifted lazily to the front of the room.

That was when he saw the Spectre.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally thought the dream sequence was a bit too corny for this fic. But then a friend told me she liked it, so I decided to keep it in, albeit integrated a bit more with the story's themes. But in doing that, it somehow ended up as more of a nightmare. Oh well, at least the part of it that Will remembers is remembered fondly.
> 
> And yes, I'm afraid there are going to be time jumps in this one. Next chapter we're back to Lyra though, right where we left off with her and Peter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a discussion of teenage pregnancy. If you don't want to read it, you may skip ahead to "took me a long time", and read from there.

Pantalaimon was snoozing in front of Lyra’s bedroom door, his tail positioned in such a way that it couldn’t be opened without moving him. This was deliberate, of course. He kept an ear open in case either Hannah or Victor decided to join them upstairs, partly a punishment for letting Peter find out, and partly to make sure no one else did.

Lyra sat down on the other side of the door, the boy and his dæmon staring at the woman they knew to be their own blood relative, while she simply stared at the wall.

After muttering something under her breath about “_turning into my mother,_” she looked down at Peter. And while, as tempting as it was to just tell another lie, the boy wasn’t stupid. There would be greater consequences if he found out she’d lied.

“Okay. Let’s go over this one more time. You are _not_ to tell anyone about this. Your mum and dad already know bits and pieces of what I’m about to say, but we can’t have them knowing that _you_ know. And yes, they _are_ your mum and dad. I haven’t been your mother in almost ten years, whereas they took you in and raised you as their own.”

Peter nodded.

“Promise you won’t tell them,” she said in a fierce whisper.

“I promise. Hand on my dæmon,” was Peter’s hushed response.

Normally this would be a figure of speech, but Lyra saw the way he diligently placed a hand on Aprilia, who was laying on his lap as a rabbit, without so much as glancing at her. The dæmon lay awake while Peter continued to stroke her ears. He did that a lot when they were nervous.

“I also need you to understand this doesn’t mean anything about you. It en’t your fault for being born, Peter. I was young and naive. Only a few year older than you are now, and... I didn’t even think it was possible to have kids before... But I en’t gonna tell you how _that_ happened. You’re too young to know. And besides...”

Lyra took a deep breath as she noticed herself slip into old speech patterns.

“It was a _stupid_ mistake,” she continued. “Courageous maybe, but no less stupid because of it. I mean,_ no one_ should have done what I did when I was at that age, but still...”

She trailed off yet again. This was coming out all wrong. If Peter didn’t already think he was an unwanted child, there was a good chance he’d be thinking it now. So she changed tack once again.

“I’m glad you’re here, Peter. Because in the end it doesn’t matter why we exist or how you were born. Just the fact that you’re here is enough, and that there are people in this world who love you. Understand?”

With a smile, Peter nodded.

“Good boy,” said Lyra, resisting the urge to pat him on the head. “Because like I say, our origins don’t define us. It's what we do with what we have. And maybe when you’re a little bit older you’ll understand it properly and I’ll tell you how it felt to come back from all those adventures and being forced to grow up, all over again.”

“Tell me now!”

Lyra wasn’t sure if it was the port talking or the fact that he’d most likely ask again louder if she refused.

“Okay, okay, but you have to be quiet. You see, I’d only been at boarding school a few weeks when I found out what was..._ happening_ to me. And I thought maybe I’d keep it a secret for a while, but that was never going to work. Before I’d even realised, my friends found out. Then the whole school found out, and that was when I found out who my real friends were. All those other girls couldn’t stop _muttering_, to me and to each other, about how it would hurt and how they _pitied_ me. You might think they meant this as a kindness, but you’d be wrong. I saw, plain as day, that none of those girls had even a shred of respect for me. _Precocious harlot _was one of the nicer things they called me when they _thought_ I wasn’t listening. And of course, they made it their business to get me thrown out of school.

“But the worst part was how they made me think I’d deserved it, that maybe I got a little_ too_ excited under the wheel trees after bringing about an end to death as we know it, and that I’d committed a most dreadful sin. That wasn’t true, of course, but they... _their words_ were enough to make me doubt myself.

“I lost count of the number of times I cried that term. And as much as I wanted to love the tiny thing growing inside me, I was _scared_ – scared of looking after a newborn baby. I know! I’d seen much scarier things in my time, but those things needed a different kind of strength, and I wasn’t strong enough to care for a child yet and be changing his nappy and keep his dæmon alive all the while. I swore on Pan I’d wouldn’t turn into my mother, but...”

She trailed off because of course he’d never met Mrs Coulter. How could he understand?

“Anyway, they kicked me out of school. The money I got Jordan College was almost all gone. Even the church wouldn’t take me in because they found out what I did to their _Authority_. So with nowhere left to go, I thought my life was over, when who should come to save me but my alethiometry teacher, a most lovely woman named Hannah. She offered me room and board for a year, and also offered to tutor me in private – only two hours a week, mind you, but I could spend the rest of the time studying in her private library. She even promised to get me back into school next year. All that she asked in return was... you.”

“Why?” Peter asked.

Lyra seemed almost flustered by the question.

“Because she’d already been the best alethiometrist in all the world, and now she wanted to be the most excellent mum!” By now she was practically fighting back tears. “That woman loved you before she’d even set her eyes upon you. And the fact she never got to have kids when she was younger broke her heart, Peter. You gave her a second chance!

“And even then, it still wasn’t easy to give you away. But keeping you would have been worse for both of us. I really think giving you a better mum was the best I could have done for you. And Victor took to being a dad like you wouldn’t believe. So I don’t feel bad anymore. And even though I’m not your mother, it’s been wonderful to watch you grow for the last nine years.”

There was a pause. Lyra spoke again to fill the silence.

“And it took me a long time to earn back the respect of the other girls, but eventually they—”

“What was my dad like?” Peter cut in.

Lyra inhaled sharply through her nose.

“Peter, I’ve told you already. Your mum, and your dad, are in the room downstairs, talking together about _how much they love you_.”

“I know, but, who did you—”

_“No,”_ said Lyra, because she knew exactly how that sentence was going to end.

“_Pleeease?_”

“I’m not telling you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I _can’t_, okay? If I thought about him too long, it would make me cry.”

Upon looking back on this conversation later, this would be the point at which Lyra and Pan would realise she had said entirely too much.

“Why? Was he bad?”

“No,” said Lyra with a sad little sigh. “He was wonderful.”

The little boy’s breathing fell silent. Perhaps because he saw a tear in his mother’s eye, but it was only there a few seconds before she furiously wiped it away.

“Did... did he die?”

“No,” she said vehemently. “I’m pretty sure he’s out still there, alive. When I go to our bench on Midsummer, I get a sense that he’s there with me.”

“Is he invisible? Like Authority?”

_“No,”_ she said, even more vehemently. “He lives in a different world to this one. You see, in the year before you were born, that world was joined on to this one, and you could walk to it, and some people walked to it. But things changed, and we had to go back to the worlds we came from, or else we’d die.

“Our bench exists in both of our worlds. So there are two of it. If we both go there on Midsummer Day, at exactly midday then—”

“What’s his name?”

Lyra let out a long sigh. She didn’t want to say it, but she didn’t want to _not_ say it.

“Will,” she said, cradling the single syllable, before reciting his full name like a poem: “William James Parry.”

Peter looked confused for a second. “So his dæmon’s called James?” he asked.

“No, silly. James is a _middle_ name. He comes from a world where people don’t have dæmons the way we do. But people get another name when they’re born. They don’t know what to do with it, so they put it in the middle, sort of like what you and I do with our dæmon names.”

Peter Aprilia Relf sneered at the thought of this.

“James en’t a name for a dæmon.”

“Well, that’s what I thought. But I didn’t want to say it, in case maybe we’d find his dæmon and he’d insist on calling her James – _because_ _that’s how we do names in our world_. He could be quite stubborn like that. But then one day we really did find her, and she took such a lovely name – _Kirjava_. And she went on to settle as the most beautiful black cat you’d ever seen.”

“So, there’s a whole other world where people don’t have dæmons?”

“Well, it’s... complicated,” she said.

“Did my dad not have a dæmon? Am I a monster?”

“What? _No!_ Those people _do_ have dæmons. They’re just... hidden away so you can’t see or speak to them.”

Peter looked puzzled, but nodded as he accepted the new information.

“Can you tell me more about that world? It sounds silly.”

Lyra paused. Hadn’t she told him enough already? Peter hadn’t been interrogating her. It was just that he’d jumped to such childish conclusions, Lyra felt the need to correct him at every turn. And without Pantalaimon in the room with her, it was all too easy to ignore his presence in her mind that urged her to _stop talking!_

Besides, she hardly ever got the chance to reminisce about those days with anyone besides Pan. So where was the harm?

“Oh, it was like something out of a Kyberpunk novel!” she said. “All towns and stuff were in the same places, but... the buildings were bigger, and they looked... meaner, somehow. There was another Oxford, and another Brytain, only without her great Zeppelin fleet. Instead they have these big metal cart things, which drive around so quickly, you’d think they were always late for something. And there are metal birds in the sky too. Metal birds with people in them. They go even faster than the carts, and you see them flying from miles around. They put little anbaric lights on the wings so you can see them flying at night. And that’s another thing – there are anbaric lights _everywhere_ in that world. Some people even wear them on their _shoes!_

“And then there are these things called _movies_, which are like a sort of photogram projection that comes to life and tells you a story. Me and Will got to see one at a special theatre, and it was _the most amazing thing you’d ever seen!_ I really wanted to applaud at the end, but he stopped me. Because—” and she imitated Will’s voice._ “—you don’t ever clap at a movie!_ It was just the strangest thing.”

“Ooh,” said Peter. “I wanna see one! When I finish school, can I go to the other world and explore with you?”

Peter’s tone of questioning had changed from curiosity to that of unbridled excitement which was, with hindsight, to be expected. Even just recalling the story to tell him was giving Lyra a sense of wonderment she hadn’t felt since she was a child. She also took a note of pride in the way Peter found her story_ interesting_. He never usually listened to grown-ups talking about _the past_, but this time was different. It almost seemed cruel to disappoint him with the truth.

“No. I’m afraid you can’t go there anymore. No one can.”

The boy’s smile changed immediately to a frown.

“Why not?”

“Well, remember how I said we all had to go back to our own worlds or we’d die? The angels said it’s not safe to go and live in other worlds. All the windows between them had to be closed forever, except for the—”

“_Why?”_

“They were letting Dust out.”

“Why? What’s so special about dust?”

“Not ordinary _dust_, Peter. This _Dust_ is the lifeblood of all conscious beings in all the worlds, including you and me. If we didn’t have it then we wouldn’t be alive.”

Lyra was only slightly bending the truth about this. There had been some victims of the Spectre attacks, and the children who’d undergone intercision. But neither of these groups could be said to be _alive _in anything more than a superficial way.

“Can’t they ever just... _make more Dust_?”

Poor, ignorant Peter. Lyra had once contemplated this very question in her youth, but had come to the conclusion it was impossible. Rebel angels would have done it themselves if they could. Wouldn’t they? If there was a way they could have allowed just one more window to stay open, then surely they would have told her and Will about it?

“I’m afraid they can’t,” said Lyra.

“Yeah they can. I used to think I’d run out of blood if I kept hurting my knee. But Hannah says that my body makes more blood, so—”

“_Stop!”_ Lyra snapped at him.

“Stop what?”

“Asking questions. And don’t call your mother by her first name.”

Lyra could see the word ‘why’ begin to form on Peter’s lips, but he managed to restrain himself from saying it. Instead he mumbled:

“Sorry,” then after a tentative pause, “Could you tell me about Will another...?”

Peter trailed off as he realised that too was a question.

“No. I’ve already said enough.”

“But I wanna know...” moaned Peter.

Lyra turned away from him.

“I _can’t,”_ she said. “Thinking about that world for too long makes me sad.”

He was clearly still itching to ask another one, but he knew that wouldn’t be allowed. Lyra decided to answer it anyway.

“Because every time I think about his world, it reminds me how I can’t go there anymore, or see that boy again, or find out what kind of man he’s become. I wish so badly I could hold his hand, and say we’ll never leave each other ever again. But I can’t. Not till after we’ve both died.”

Lyra couldn’t bear to look at the little boy’s face right now. Even just seeing the family resemblance had the risk of reducing her to tears.

“If you don’t tell me...” Peter began, “then I ask the compass.”

Lyra swivelled back around so fast she almost made herself dizzy. But Peter already had the alethiometer in his lap, his arms folded over it protectively. Aprilia was even standing on top of it. Lyra considered snatching it right back off him, but what if she touched April by accident? They might put up a struggle, make a noise, get hurt, or possibly damage a priceless artefact with immense sentimental value. She couldn’t imagine which nightmare scenario would annoy Hannah the most, and didn’t particularly care to find out. But whichever one happened, Lyra would almost certainly get the blame for it.

Besides, she couldn’t help feeling a tiny bit curious about whether the boy could actually do it.

“Fine. Ask away,” she said tersely. “But don’t expect any help from me.”

Peter looked Lyra in the eye, as if to confirm some form of parental approval before operating the instrument. Lyra watched as his fingers danced over the three brass knobs that controlled the hands. He was already making the mistake of starting with the object hand rather than the subject, but that distinction was purely academic. Lyra was more concerned with how he’d be phrasing the question.

To pose any question to the alethiometer was a challenge in itself. The particular way that one had to operate the instrument made it a haphazard challenge of metaphors and tangled connotations that sent even the hardiest scholars home in frustration. That was because a symbol on the dial would rarely, if ever, refer to the literal object it was a picture of. More often than not, the meaning was a concept only tangentially related to it, or something related to that, or something related to _that_, and so on. These were the ladders of meaning Lyra had climbed so effortlessly as a child, but which she now traversed with care and slow determination.

This made it almost impossible to imagine how Peter would approach the question. But if she had to guess, he would probably start with something that meant _father_, which was always a tricky one. _Father_ was one of those meanings for which no two scholars could agree on a correct symbol or combination of symbols that described it best.

As if to complicate things further, the meanings of the symbols varied from person to person, depending on what that person _thought_ they meant. Many older texts, for instance, favoured either the sun or the sword for _father_. But more often than not, they meant _father_ in the sense of _heavenly father_, and from there the ladder of meanings went on to _the Authority_, then _creator_, then _carpenter_. But the recent undoing of the Authority’s power meant that fewer and fewer people were going to associate the sun or sword with divinity from now on. It was not that these meanings had vanished entirely. They were just pushed further up the ladder into the realm of abstraction. It was more or less inevitable for the meanings of symbols to drift over time as a living language, with broad consensus setting out most of what a symbol meant. But any alethiometrist could stumble upon their own personal meaning for a symbol without meaning to, by virtue of an accidental hunch. The books offered very little guidance on what to do when this happened, only on how to avoid it. And the further one followed their personal ladders of meaning, the more they diverged from anyone else’s. All this meant she was curious to see how Peter, with no strong preconceptions formed by study habits, would approach the question.

He wasn’t using any of the symbols she guessed he would use. He put one hand on the helmet for _protection_, or perhaps _narrow vision_. Another hand went to the baby which, at a guess, might have meant _helplessness_, or perhaps himself. The third one he placed on the moon, which nominally referred to _mystery_, but depending on the context of the question, it could mean just about anything. Ambiguous symbols are an alethiometrist’s worst nightmare.

If Lyra had a few minutes to spare, and access to a reference book, she might be able to take an educated guess at its meaning. Her eyes touched upon a 4th edition _Encyclopædia of Symbols_ on the bookcase, but there was no time to open it or skim to the right page because as soon as Peter finished moving the hands, the fine needle sprang into action.

Two humans and a dæmon stared upon the moving point, but only one of them truly seemed to understand it. One by one, it stopped upon the camel, then the globe, the angel, the bull, the thunderbolt...

Peter’s eyes darted back and forth for every symbol the needle pointed to, so fast that Lyra was struggling just to memorise the chain.

For a reading like this, she’d have had to repeat the question several times over, sometimes with minor variations to make sure she’d done it right. And even when it worked, she’d have to spend a good hour or more making notes, comparing every possible interpretation, and probably make at least two trips to the library. Even then, her readings sometimes failed for no apparent reason.

Peter however was doing none of this, and Lyra was beyond jealous. It only served to remind her how effortlessly she’d done it all those years ago. But even then, her first few attempts with the instrument had never been this fast and fluent. It had taken until at least the sixth or seventh try for it to make any sense at all. And Peter was only nine, for God’s sake – this wasn’t fair! For him to pick it up on his first try was nothing short of infuriating!

Unless of course this _wasn’t _his first try. The more Lyra thought about it, the more it seemed suspicious how, on every one of their last few visits, Peter and April had gone upstairs to ‘study’.

Oh, how_ very_ clever of them.

It came as little consolation to Lyra that he’d lose those talents in a few short years.

When the needle finally came to a rest, Peter looked up from the alethiometer and wiped his nose on his sleeve, looking very proud of what he’d done. Even his dæmon changed into a smug-looking kitten.

Lyra was the first to break the silence.

“Well, what did you ask?”

“You’ll see him again,” he declared, pausing for emphasis, “in Constantinople, after the Great Quake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And **that** is why this story can never be fully canon compliant...
> 
> Given this chapter's highly sensitive subject matter, I think it's almost guaranteed to make some readers angry. If that's you, I apologise, and offer my sincerest thanks for presumably having read the rest of the chapter anyway.
> 
> To be honest, I'm not exactly thrilled by the suggestion Will and Lyra... _made love_ in the world of the mulefa. I kinda preferred to see them as children, and would almost rather see them as friends, but it's very clear the books had other ideas. I didn't want to believe it at first, but the subtext is all there.
> 
> American readers might not know that the censors cut a paragraph from _The Amber Spyglass_ that describes – through extended metaphor – the ways in which Lyra realises she is Becoming A Woman. See [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amber_Spyglass#Changes_to_US_edition) for details. There's also the way the world seemingly conspires to give them privacy at the moment the prophecy is due to occur - dæmons are conveniently absent and even the book's POV cuts away soon after the kiss. And that's without mentioning all the other taboo stuff that's known to happen at the onset of puberty.
> 
> PP has [denied](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/12/how-hollywood-saved-god/306444/) this had anything to do with it, which is exactly what I'd do if I were in his position. He is, at the end of the day, a children's author with a reputation to defend.
> 
> Still, I wanted to address it in this fic, and that meant taking the time to address it properly.
> 
> I mean, it is entirely possible Will and Lyra just kissed in canon, but remember this is the one big event that redirects the Dust stream. And given the heavy tone _His Dark Materials_ built up over three books, having those countless worlds saved by a magic kiss feels almost... Disneyesque by comparison.
> 
> Oh, but speaking of Disney, did you ever stop to wonder what movie they might be watching?
> 
> Yes, I almost forgot that scene existed until I began writing this chapter, but perhaps my favourite part of the trilogy is the early parts of TSK when they get to experience the childlike joy of exploring new worlds – a far cry from the mature and responsible people they'd have to become by the end of TAS. Giving Lyra the chance to reminisce about it was perhaps the most satisfying part of this chapter to write.
> 
> Anyway, it would have been a movie where lots of other children were watching. And since the books take place in the late nineties (don't let the TV series convince you otherwise) my headcanon is that they watched Disney's _Hercules_ (1997). Something about the scene in which he rescues Megara reminds me so much of HDM. I like to imagine it planted the seed of an idea in Lyra's mind that might have helped inspire her to find Roger.


	4. Chapter 4

At the end of a productive morning, Kirjava leapt from the desk and curled up in a ball on the chair. She tried several times to find a more comfortable position before giving up, climbed back onto the computer desk, and settled in her usual spot on the keyboard. It was warm, the way a laptop keyboard should be. For this reason alone, she preferred it to Will’s laptop which, despite being faster and having more RAM, didn’t get nearly as warm.

She had almost dozed off with her head on the number pad when the sound of a new email woke her up. It was from an employment agency, asking if William Parry was interested in applying for a job in the field of consciousness research, even if was for less pay and located in a different part of the country.

Kirjava replied to it right away, writing as if she were Will – which was never an outright lie – but not before checking that the blinds were shut. The blinds in the study were _always_ shut, but it seemed a sensible precaution. Because if anyone were to look through the window and see what appeared to be large black cat _writing an email_, her picture would end up on the Internet, which was the last thing they needed. Will in particular despised the thought of being famous or recognisable. They’d put stickers on their webcams for similar reasons.

After finishing the email and tapping on Send with her velvety paw – _thank goodness for touchscreens!_ – the dæmon no longer felt like napping. She decided to reward herself by playing a game, and was halfway through choosing which one to play when she felt a distant pang of emotion from Will.

It must have been a particularly strong emotion if she could detect it nine miles away. But at this distance it was hard to tell _what_ her human was thinking, only that it must be something bad.

There wasn’t much Kirjava could do to help him, even if she knew it, but it was impossible to stop worrying on Will’s behalf. The man really _needed_ a career change, and no one knew that more than his dæmon. But as for the thing stressing Will out now, she hoped he’d feel better in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, at a business park in a satellite town of Oxford, someone interrupted a meeting with the scrape of a chair. It was Will. He stood up, his face contorted into a look of pure terror.

“Spectre!” he cried.

All faces turned towards the one who had made the noise.

“Parry makes a good point,” some smartarse chimed in. “The spectre of last year’s losses—”

“Nono, there’s a Spectre, _right there!”_

He pointed his disfigured left hand at a shimmering misty presence in the air, like an oil slick without colour. The last time Will had seen one of these things had been in a nightmare. It looked even harsher than usual under the fluorescent office lights. So why weren’t his colleagues reacting the same way he was? Why weren’t some of them reacting at all?

“Probably still drunk,” a sales manager whispered.

“I knew someone who tried shrooms once...” began another.

Unbelievable. These idiots weren’t even aware of the danger, and most likely because they weren’t seeing it at all. It was as Will suspected when the Spectres had tormented his poor mother. The damn thing had made itself invisible!

“Are you alright?”

It was Trudy who spoke this time.

No, Will Parry was most certainly _not alright_. He’d just seen something he hoped never to see again after leaving those worlds behind. The closing of the windows and the final destruction of the subtle knife should have brought about an end to all this. _Should have_. And yet in spite of all that, his nightmare scenario had come true: a Spectre of Indifference had followed him to work.

Will realised he had been backing out the room, never once taking his eyes off the deplorable... _creature_ was too kind a word for it. But before he could think of a plausible-sounding excuse, his survival instinct kicked in, and Will turned tail and ran for it. The Spectre was not far behind him.

It didn’t look much like it was moving, but every time he glanced over his shoulder he noticed the misty shimmer had drifted closer. When he sprinted past the labs and the break room, he tried not to think of all the innocent people who stood in the Spectre’s path. Will told himself a Spectre wouldn’t drain his coworkers’ life forces, that it was only after him. He hoped he was right.

At the far end of the corridor was a heavy steel door that opened to the outside stairs. Will tried pushing the bar but it was locked – _Damn! –_ and wouldn’t even budge until he turned the emergency catch, costing him valuable seconds.

He clattered down the spiral steps, two at a time, taking the last five in a single bound and landed in a heap on the tarmac. Will looked up. He had never seen a Spectre from this angle before – directly above him, and descending. It took him a fraction of a second to register the threat and wriggle out of its path, but he felt certain the thing was ripping at his mind, draining him of consciousness. He had to fight back or it would consume his very soul, but he had nothing yet to fight it with. So, desperate to put at least some distance between himself and the Spectre, Will sprinted for the car.

_The car!_ Had he parked it facing outwards or inwards today? That seemingly meaningless choice may well determine if he had a long life or a short one. But in his first stroke of luck that day, he found the little black hatchback facing _out_ of its space with a direct path towards the vehicle exit. Will took the key from his pocket while he ran, unlocked, opened and slammed the car door in one swift movement, then climbed over the handbrake to take the wheel.

He was ready to floor the accelerator if the Spectre so much as approached him, but by the time he’d started the engine it was too late. The Spectre had moved out in front of him, blocking the car park’s only exit. Will may be forced to escape it on foot, but he couldn’t outrun it for long, so there was no choice really but to drive. He pulled the gear stick into reverse. One way or another, he was going to get out of this car park, even if it meant destroying the chain link fence.

But to Will’s surprise, the Spectre did _not_ hold its position. Instead it was retreating through the vehicle exit. A few seconds later it had drifted off and vanished round the corner.

Now what?

Will _wanted_ to feel relieved by this, except there would be nothing stopping it from coming back to ruin his day some other time, and he was _not_ prepared to take that chance, not after what a Spectre had done to his mother. He swore he’d get revenge if he ever saw another one...

Will panicked and released the clutch too soon, causing the car to stall. He started again, trying not to think about Mum, and this time the car lurched forward, but stayed in gear.

Its misty form was drifting along the edge of the site, a short distance along the road he would have taken to get home. Will turned left to follow it, unsure of what to do if he caught up, but he didn’t want to let the Spectre out of sight. He kept his distance but it was going much faster now. It was approaching the T-junction and... turning right?

What exactly was it doing, and why was it pretending to follow the road? It didn’t seem like something a Spectre would do, but Will knew they could be commanded as Mrs Coulter had done. He didn’t know who might be commanding it stay on the left, the way a car would do. But if Kirjava was with him maybe she’d be able to figure out why. If nothing else, she could at least calm him down with a joke.

_Of course! Kirjava! _That was the reason it hadn’t gone after him. It wanted his dæmon. When Spectres attacked the witch clans under Coulter’s command, they tended to go for the dæmons first. And now that his soul-in-animal-form was sitting at home, unable to share his thoughts, she was defenceless. What if the Spectre got there first? They’d never share each other’s thoughts again.

He had to stop at the next red light. The Spectre stopped and waited just beyond it, as if trying to taunt him.

When the light turned green again and the thing started moving again, Will shifted into fourth gear.

Only then did it occur to him to warn Kirjava. The phone was in his right trouser pocket and he wasn’t used to using it while driving, not only because it was illegal, but because it meant taking his one good hand off the steering wheel. Just this once, he decided it was worth the risk. He made every effort to steer with two fingers and a thumb while the car drifted steadily out of lane. After fumbling the phone out of his pocket, Will made an attempt to dial home.

“Okay Google—” he began, but his attention was stolen by the traffic island he was about to crash into.

He swerved back to the middle of the lane and the phone slipped out of his hand and lost itself under the driver’s seat.

“FUCK!”

_“Oh dear. Sorry you feel that way,”_ a mechanical voice said from the floor of the car, causing Will to punch the wheel in frustration.

He tried again to grab the phone’s attention while having shout over the engine noise. It must have fallen against something that muffled the microphone. On his fourth such attempt, Will managed to convince it to dial home, but all he could hear was a recording of his own voice saying, “Please leave a message.”

Will couldn’t remember what he said in that message, only that he wanted her to know of the incoming Spectre attack, and told her where to run in case there was more than one Spectre. All this he screamed at the top of his voice, just to be on the safe side. And when he said a brief goodbye to his dæmon at the end, he sincerely believed it could be their last. But he couldn’t count on her getting the message before it found her. So he’d just have to find his way home before _it _did.

By now he was approaching the Oxford ring road. The Spectre was a short way in front of him, but he couldn’t overtake it as he was afraid to go anywhere within touching range. That was, however, until he saw the sign for the roundabout.

He was about to make a right-hand turn that would have normally involved doing three quarters of a circle around the roundabout. And if the Spectre was keeping to the left, the way it had been doing so far, it would also be taking the long way round. Will saw there was a chance to overtake the Spectre, and he took it. After all, he’d already broken the law once today.

In the final approach to the roundabout, he swung the wheel right to switch lanes – directly into the path of oncoming traffic. This shortcut would only work if he drove on the wrong side of the road, and he desperately hoped no traffic would come in the next few seconds. If a car approached him head-on, he was done for. One of them almost did, and if it hadn’t changed direction at the last second, very nearly colliding with a signpost, they surely would have collided with _each other_.

Will felt sick as he completed the illegal right-hand turn. His eyes stayed wide open, not even daring to blink, looking like he was surprised by his own dangerous driving. He wished he could shut them tight until it was over, were it not for the fact this would certainly kill him.

Once he made it to the relative safety of the A40, he glanced at the Spectre in the rear-view mirror. It was ten or so metres behind him, so he accelerated hard to get away from it.

At that moment, a van approached Will from the opposite direction. He swung his wheel left as soon as he saw it. The honk of its horn was the last thing he heard before he was back in the left lane, immediately having to swerve the other way to avoid a hornbeam tree.

That was the most _stupid _and_ brilliant_ thing he’d ever done. Brilliant in that it had worked. Stupid for every other reason.

But the risk he had taken didn’t matter to Will now. All that mattered was he and Kirjava would both stay safe if he reached home before the Spectre did. After that, he could focus on the hardest part: killing it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did promise you a car chase with a Spectre, didn't I? Well here's the first half of it.
> 
> And in a complete coincidence, I actually happened to be on this stretch of road today (and on the 24th). My aunt and uncle drove on a short section of it when they picked us up from the station. I didn't even know we'd be travelling in this part of Oxfordshire, so it came as a fun surprise – albeit one that didn't mean much to anyone besides me.
> 
> I didn't see any Spectres, though I did see a little black hatchback.
> 
> Oh and yes, part of my research for this chapter did involve downloading the Google Assistant app and yelling a swear word at it to see what it said.
> 
> Anyway, I'll leave you with some never-seen-before LEAKED FOOTAGE of Kirjava writing Will's emails (top secret). It's a mental image that is sure to lift my spirits while writing some of the darker parts of this fic...
> 
> See you in the next chapter!


End file.
